House sales rise 6.5% in 2015

(ANSA) - Rome, March 3 - Residential property sales rose for the second consecutive year in 2015 with an increase of 6.5%, Italy's inland revenue agency said Thursday.
    Some 445,000 residential properties were sold during the course of last year, the tax authority added. Prices also returned to growth for the first time in over three years, with a 0.2% increase in the second hald of the year. Residential property sales in Milan rose by 13.4% in 2015 over the previous year, followed by Palermo at 13%, Florence at 8.9%, Turin at 7.9%, Naples at 6.6%and Bologna at 4.2%.
    In Rome house sales rose by 0.8%.
    The growth was driven by an improvement in the mortgage market, the agency said.
    The number of mortgages issued rose by 19.5% to 193,000 last year.